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Original Message

(1)Modern Freemasonry has been around since 1717.The first concocted untruths about the Order appeared in print at almost the same time.The United States was consumed by anti-Masonic hysteria in the late 1820s,and Europe has made Mason-bashing a popular sport for two centuries,often tying it to anti-Semitic propaganda.The Internet has only served to resurrect these myths,as they get dragged out and repeated all over again.Here are some of the most common ones.

(2)Freemasons do not ride a goat in their lodges.It's a joke,perpetrated often by Masons themselves on nervous initiates.

Since at least the Middle Ages,the goat has been symbolic of the devil,and stories were circulated then of witches who called forth Satan,who came riding into town on a goat to take part in their blasphemous orgies.Then,as the Freemasons gained in popularity,detractors accused them of witchcraft,which is probably where the notion of initiates riding a goat came from.

It didn't help that some early ritual books from the fraternity referred to God as "God of All Things" and abbreviated it as G.O.A.T. That was quickly changed, and God is now referred to by Masons by the acronym G.A.O.T.U., for Grand Architect of the Universe.

Old catalogs from fraternal supply companies in the late 1800s actually offered mechanical goats for use in other fraternal organizations and "fun" degrees. As the golden age of fraternalism resulted in literally hundreds of other groups popping up in competition with the Masons, some were obviously less serious than others. Such items only served to perpetuate the myth that Masons and other fraternities required a goat-ride ritual for their initiations. Freemasonry never has.

Rest assured,There is no lodge goat.The degrees of Masonry are serious business to Freemasons, and there is no horseplay (or goatplay).

(3)

Masons have been accused of using their own,presumably Satanic,bible in their ceremonies.Many people have seen Masonic bibles for sale on eBay and elsewhere and clearly believe that Bibles used by Masons are somehow different.

This myth is actually a two-part one. Lodges in predominantly Christian communities commonly have the custom of presenting the new Master Mason with a commemorative heirloom Bible.In the United States,the most common one is the 1611 translation of the King James version, published especially for Masonic lodges by Heirloom Bible Publishers of Wichita, Kansas.It contains an area in the front for the Mason to commemorate important dates in his degree work, places for his brethren to sign the record of his degrees, and a 94-page glossary of biblical references relating to Masonic ceremonies,along with essays about Masonry and some common questions and answers.The rest of it is the entire King James version of the Old and New Testament that is available in any bookstore.

The second part of this myth has to do with the use of the Volume of Sacred Law in a Masonic lodge.All regular,well-governed lodges must have a book considered sacred to its members open on the lodge altar during meetings.Depending on what part of the world the lodge is in and the beliefs of the lodge's members,this sacred book could be the Bible,the Hebrew Tanach,the Muslim Koran,the Hindu Veda,the Zoroastrian Zend-Avesta,or the Proverbs of Confucius.It's simply referred to as the Volume of Sacred Law,as a nonsectarian term.

(4)which actually is a fact and not a mythFreemasonry worships the sun.Just about every symbol they have has a sun in it.